Bonjour!

I cannot believe it’s almost April! The weather is getting nicer and I thought that called for some celebration. This week, I made an orange cardamom cake inspired by the New York Times Cooking orange cake – but spicy! Well, without further ado, let’s get into today’s Spice of the Week!

Cardamom

Cardamom is an interesting spice. Known as the “Queen of Spices,” it is a spice that is relatively expensive due to its labor-intensive picking process. There are two kinds of cardamom, green and black, which taste very different from each other. Elettaria cardamomum, green cardamom, has a very strong taste that is a bit polarizing. Amomum subulatum, black cardamom, has a smokier flavor and is a bit minty. They’re both interesting spices, but be warned: Don’t try to substitute one for the other, they taste very different!

Orange Cardamom Cake

Orange and cardamom are a very common pair, for good reason! The flavors complement each other very well, in moderation.They both have a pretty overwhelming flavor, so balance is key! Honestly, there’s not much to say about this cake. It’s a bit more labor-intensive and takes a long time, but it’s very worth it! I would say that a food syringe would come in handy when making this cake, so if you have one on hand, use it! If not, don’t worry. You’ll just have a somewhat uneven amount of orange juice within the cake. Well, I’m getting ahead of myself. More on this later! 

Well, that’s all for today! Recipe is attached below!

Adios! 

Spice Girl

Recipe 

Makes: 1 cake (8-10 servings)

Prep Time:

Cook Time: 40-45 minutes

Difficulty: Intermediate difficult

Ingredients

Cake:

-Zest of 3 oranges

-2 cups + 2 tablespoons flour, sifted

-3 eggs

-1 stick of butter

-1 cup + 3 tablespoons sugar

-1 tablespoon milk

-2 tablespoons water

-½ teaspoon cardamom

Marinade:

-Juice of 4 oranges

Glaze:

-Zest of 1 orange

-Juice of 1 orange

-1 ⅓ cup + 1 tablespoon Confectioner’s sugar or as desired for glaze thickness

1. Wash your oranges. Like, really well. You need the zest of the orange, so make sure you get all the dirt off!
2. Zest your oranges and juice them. We had a zester and a juicer, which made this super quick.
3. Use an electric beater to mix most of your cake ingredients together: The zest, eggs, flour, butter, sugar, water and cardamom.
4. Once the mixture is smooth, add in your milk and baking powder.
5. Pour the batter into a bundt pan. Ours didn’t fill even halfway, but it pretty much doubled in the oven.
7. Then your cake is ready to be put in the oven! Bake for 40 to 45 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
8. Now for the glaze! Mix together the zest and juice. Get a sifter and slowly incorporate the confectioner’s sugar. Tip: If you have a hand sifter, put your confectioner’s sugar in the top and squeeze the handle. If you don’t, look for a strainer/sieve. You can use that, too! Justgently shake or tap the side to make the sugar fall through the tiny holes.
9. Once at your desired thickness, set aside for later.
10. Once the cake is finished, flip it out of the bundt and wait 15 minutes for the cake to cool.
11. When your cake is ready, poke a bunch of holes in it. The cake is pretty hard and more of a bread texture so it can hold all the orange juice. 
12. This is when a food syringe would be handy. You want to infuse the cake with the juice. Our cake had only an outer rim ofjuice, unfortunately. If you have a syringe or a piping bag or something with a more precise tip, use it! Picture to the right for reference of how the cake looks with the juice in it.
13. Lastly, you can glaze the cake. Tip: our cake tasted better after a day. Consider covering the cake and waiting a few hours before consuming for more orange flavor! Picture to the left is a reference for how the cake looks with the glaze.
14. Enjoy!